Cloud computing provides shared computer processing resources and data on-demand to networked devices. It enables access to a shared pool of computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with relatively little management overhead. Various different service models are defined for cloud computing, including Software as a Service (SaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The PaaS model allows users to deploy onto the cloud user-created applications using languages, libraries, and tools supported by the provider. PaaS vendors (providers) typically offer a development environment to application developers (users) by delivering a computing platform that includes an operating system, execution environment, database, and web server, among other components. The developers can then develop and test their applications without buying or managing these underlying computing resources. Many new applications are developed in the cloud hosted by PaaS technology, and popular providers include Cloud Foundry, OpenShift, Kubernetes and Mesos. Such companies generally provide the speed, simplicity and control to develop and deploy applications faster and easier for users. However, even though PaaS greatly simplifies and shortens the application/solution development and delivery, it still faces the same traditional challenges of data protection, especially in enterprise environments. Even worse, there is generally no data protection solution available for these new PaaS platforms.
Current cloud platform services and systems are generally not well geared toward present backup and data protection models. Enterprise-level and cloud platforms using PaaS platforms typically focus on container-based services. Under this model, these systems do not provide a traditional file system, but instead provide a backend data store, and applications subscribe to this service and provision resources from this data service. The backend database service stores applications states, and container technology is used to store multiple instances such that all states of the applications are kept inside persistent databases. Backup operations in cloud platforms back up entire infrastructures rather than individual data sets (e.g., files) or applications. In this situation, data lifecycle management systems cannot store different instances of the applications and their data. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that data retention requirements (e.g., RTO, RPO) are different for different types of data and applications. For example, individual files may be backed up, whereas a SQL database may be backed up monthly, but require hourly or continuous protection, while an Exchange server may have other backup and data protection requirements. Under PaaS systems, backup processes lose these lifecycle and data protection configurations since entire infrastructures are backed up rather than individual applications or data sets.
What is needed therefore, is a system that provides custom or granular data protection to PaaS platforms. What is further needed is a system that leverages container or PaaS platform technology to request data from data service providers to provide proper backup and protection based on appropriate lifecycle management requirements.
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